Alright.... I can't believe that I'm going to add to this thread with yet another negative experience. It totally caught me off guard a few days ago.
I had an extremely awkward/ difficult experience with............
Patrick Stewart.
In fairness to him, allow me to set the scene: it was at the Seattle con, and he had already signed probably thousands of things. I was literally one of the last 50 people in the line during the last day of the con in his final line for the con.
He was extremely distracted. People were coming up to him from behind and saying things, he was answering his cell phone intermittently, etc.
When I arrived at the front of the line one of the con workers said, "no personalization or inscriptions. What do you want signed?"
I showed my three items to her. Then I said, (read this carefully)
"I want him to sign these items in gold please." It wasn't an unusual request. She nodded then passed the instruction on to one of his assistants.
Sir Stewart was in the middle of a long phone call, which allowed me to unfurl two huge movie posters and place my already-signed-by-Shatner DVD cover of "The Captains" documentary in front of him. When he finally finished the call his assistant said, "in gold" to him probably three times, then as he picked up a blue marker *I* said, "in gold," then as the marker tip was an inch away from touching my cover I said, "SIR! SIR!"
...............He pressed on.
I, as I am known to do-- be it with Patrick Stewart or Jesus-- went from zero to extremely pissed off. Was it absolutely essential that the item get signed in gold ink? Not really. But when I'm paying $75 per signature AND someone is ignoring his customer AND the assistant to his immediate left then I'll get angry.
I sort of shook my head and probably looked steaming mad. I was immediately met by Stewart scowling at me as if he was challenging a Klingon to a death match. I quickly turned away because
I didn't want to get in a shouting match with Patrick Stewart.
His agent, Harry Gold (who I later adored) said, "you should have spoken up!"
Stewart said (to mollify the situation), "look, I've never done this before for anyone." Then he signed it in blue AND gold ink.
I said, "Actually, if you could just write a 'Make it so!' inscription I would be more than happy."
He did. Then he signed my posters.
Then... he apologized and immediately moved on to the next person before he got my response to the apology. I said, "It's alright. I know that you're busy," but it's anyone's guess if he actually heard me.
So as I was rolling the posters and putting them into tubes Mr. Gold actually walked out of Stewart's booth, approached me with a very warm smile and asked, "Look, were you happy with that experience?"
Me: "Not really."
Him: "What can I do for you?"
Me: ".....Thank you, but I don't want to be an annoyance."
"It's no problem. Just tell me what I can do to rectify the problem."
I told him that I didn't really like the two inks that were used on the cover. He returned the cover to Stewart, had him sign it in all gold (over the blue ink) then returned it to me.
Him (pointing at the "Make it so" inscription): "It's very rare that he does that. You're satisfied now?"
"Yes, thanks SO much."
"No problem. Next time speak up so he knows what you want."
".....Well, his assistant and I said it four or five times."
"Well, he didn't hear you."
I just thanked him again. Then he took off. Love that guy.
I didn't have the heart to say, "it's not that he didn't HEAR us..........................."